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All herds have a leader. The herd leader is one that they trust to lead them safely where ever they go. It’s the horse that the other horses respect and will follow any where. To your horse you are part of his herd. If you want your horse to go where you tell him to he must accept you as a leader.

There are three basic ways to get your horse to do something. The first is to force your horse to do what you want. You use intimidation as a tool and whip or beat your horse into doing everything. The second way is to bribe your horse. You use a bucket of grain on the other side of an obstacle to get your horse to cross.

Then there is the way that falls in between. You are nether overly aggressive nor overly wimpy. You earn your horse’s respect by asking them to do something, then applying enough pressure to get your horse to do the task at hand. And as soon as your horse makes an effort in the right direction, you release pressure. This person must be assertive so the horse will know exactly what is wanted from him.

If you watch your horses interact in their pen, you will see which one is the leader. He will get first pick of the food, and if he goes somewhere the others follow him. Now to get his buddies to go with him or do what he wants does he beat them or bribe them? Of coarse not. He may bite one of his herd mates to get a point across, but most of the time he will just lay his ears back and move his head to get the others where he wants them.

Pictured to the right is Mirandah and Dollar in a trail class. The object of this obstacle is for the rider to dismount and lead the horse over the post. If you’ll notice Dollar isn’t paying any attention to Mirandah. And Mirandah is pulling on him to get his attention. Now Dollar isn’t afraid of this obstacle . He’s just pretty sure Mirandah isn’t his leader. If she was just practicing at home she would have several options. One would be to get a whip and smack Dollar around. Another would be to get some grain and walk over the log and coax him over. But perhaps the best way to get him over, would be to stand at the log with her reins in her left arm extended over the log. Then swing a rope (or stick and string or whip) with her right hand towards his rump till he decides to move forward. She would start swinging pretty far away from him to start and continue to get closer. He may even require a tap, but as soon as he starts to go she would quit swinging the rope.

The same would be true if she was mounted. She could start by swinging the reins back and forth over the saddle horn. Progress to snapping them on the leather of the saddle. And if that didn’t work she could pop him on the rump.

It’s a little different if the obstacle is something that frightens the horse, such as a water crossing. With something like this, I like to approach and retreat from the obstacle while progressively get closer. Eventually you will get close enough for your horse to check things out, and eventually he will cross.

Being assertive with your horse can help establish you as his leader. Respect and trust are also major components that you must earn from your horse for him to look at you as his leader. Once it is established that you are a good leader your horse will be willing to do almost anything for you.

Do It Yourself for the Average Horse Owner. What exactly does that mean? It means that this is a website designed to help normal people with their normal, day to day horse issues. The horses that I use are not professionally trained, show horses. My demonstrations are all done with horses that I or my friends own. In fact, the horse featured in most of the pictures and video, Dollar, is a horse that I acquired in a trade when he was only a yearling, and I have done all the training on him. He’s not perfect, but he gets the job done. I created this site, because most of the horse owners out there are just average people. They have their horses out in a pasture. They saddle and bridle their own horses. And for a many, they don’t do much with their horses except for the occasional weekend ride.

This site is designed to be easy to use. It has step by step instructions with pictures that make it easy to follow. Then many of my posts will also include a video showing how to do what was described in the post. Eventually, the posts will also include links to other posts that tie in with what you are learning to do. For example, the post on bridling will have a link to the post on how to train your horse to position his head while being bridled. Right now the site is a work in progress, and I don’t have half the information on here that I want to get on here. But as the weather gets better, I’ll be adding information day by day.

The training information that is going to be on this site is going to be broken down in very easy to follow step by step process. The training videos will be performed using horses that don’t already know how to do the maneuver we are working on. I know when I’m looking up “how to” information, it is very frustrating to watch a person explain how to train your horse to do something, and their horse does it perfectly in minutes. For most of us in the real world, it doesn’t work like that.

Each post includes an area where you can comment. All comments are welcome. Please comment if there was something you found confusing or know of a way I can improve the information. There is also a forum on here. Hopefully that will take off and people will be able to ask questions or give tips, and get feed back from other horse owners.

So is this a site that is going to be useful to you? This site is great for a new horse owner who is just learning how to do many of the tasks involved with horse owning. This is also a great site for children that are just learning how to take care of their own horse. Perhaps mom and dad are worn out from saddling and bridling their child’s horse for them. This site is perfect for that. Also if you are an experienced horse person and are stuck on how to get your horse to do a particular manuveor, this site could be for you. Not all horses respond the same to the same training. I may offer a little different way of training the horse to do something, that may work on the horse your training. Basically this site can be useful to anyone.

If you do much riding, you will eventually have to go up and down some hills. Maneuvering hills can be tricky, but with a few tips, you can make the trip a little more relaxing for both you and your horse.

First lets go down the hill. Think about your body position. As your horse descends down the hill you want to keep your body perpendicular with level ground. Notice in the picture, Tracey is leaning slightly back. Her feet then shift slightly forward so that they are under her hips. This helps the horse maintain his center of gravity and makes him better able to keep his balance. I also try to remember to keep my heels down and toes out to remind the horse to go slow. If you look at just the top of this picture (at Tracey) you really shouldn’t be able to tell whether she is going down a hill or riding on level ground (I have cut out the horse in the following picture to illustrate this). I also found that it works best if you try to relax your body and let your hips move in time with your horse. Let your horse have a little slack in the reins, provided he doesn’t try to run down the hill. It’s safest to walk your horse down hills. If you let him run he could lose his footing, or become unbalanced and fall. Also running down hills is tough on your horses leg joints.

Now that we are down at the bottom of the hill, we need to get back up to the top. Again you want to keep your body perpendicular with level ground. Therefore, you basically need to do the opposite with your body that you did going down hill. Here is Gabby pictured going up hill. Her body is in good position. Her body is perpendicular to level ground, and her shoulders, hips and heels are aligned. Again if you were looking at just the top of the picture (at Gabby only), you really would not be able to tell if she was riding a horse on flat ground or up a hill. Your speed up the hill is up to you. My horses love to run up hills, but I try to mix it up a little and make them walk up the hills sometimes. That way if someone else is riding them that doesn’t want to run, my horse won’t have a fit and blow up when they are asked to walk up the hill.

Through a pasture or on a trail, riding up and down hills can be tons of fun, but it can also cause anxiety if you are unsure how to get to the bottom or top safely. Hopefully with these tips and a little practice you soon will be maneuvering hills like a master.

Thanks for dropping in and maybe someday you will be good enough with hills to handle “The Man From Snowy River” – the decent